Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget (9 August 1896-16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development, particularly his theory of cognitive development.

Biography
Jean Piaget was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland in 1896, and he was brilliant as a youth. He graduated from the University of Neuchatel in 1918, and he first developed as a psychologist in the 1920s, taking up an interest in child development.

Theory of Cognitive Development
Piaget's "Theory of Cognitive Development" studied how thinking develops over time (cognitive development). He believed that the factors influencing changes in thinking were bilological maturation, action/activity, social experiences, and equilibriation (a state of cognitive balance). He believed in both biological (organization and adaptation) and environmental factors regarding development, as well as the role of oaction in intelligence. Intelligence at every period involves some form of action on the world. At each stage of his theory, there was an action scheme for infants/children to understand the world.

Piaget was a stage theorist, with his stages being:


 * 1) Sensorimotor (ages 0-2), develops schemes through senses and motor activity. Infants understand the world through overt actions performed on it; schemes progressively become more complex and interrelated.


 * 1) *A major part of the stage is object permanence, the knowledge that objects have a permanent existence that is independent of our perceptual contact with them. A major achievement in the sensorimotor period; "out of sight, out of mind".


 * 1) Preoperational (ages 2-6), difficulty mentally reversing actions, decentering, egocentric.


 * 1) Concrete operational (ages 6-12), operations through concrete experiences only. Can now decenter.


 * 1) Formal operational (ages 12-adult), abstractions, hypothesis generation, systematic problem solving, mental manipulation

Later life
Piaget would later go on to serve as Director of the International Bureau of Education, and he founded the Center for Genetic Epistemology in 1955, directing the center until his death in 1980. His views became widely popularized in the 1960s, and his views helped to shape the study of development as a major sub-discipline of psychology.